"You'll end up where you were meant to"...

[SigKapSweetie]

I rushed at UF (SEC school), and I ended up just where I was meant to.
My chapter is the smallest on campus; I guess that would give it a 'weak' reputation according to this thread. During round 3, I cut two of the largest chapters on campus, and cut two more during prefs, all in favor of my 'weak' chapter. Rushees need to realize that the 'strength' of a chapter might not have anything to do with whether they belong there. My chapter was the only one where I felt like I could be myself and not be fake 24/7 to get the other girls to accept me. I realize some chapters do simply have 'weak' reputations, and that discourages some rushees from looking at those houses, but if they can see past it, sometimes it's the smaller houses they're really meant to be in.

[GammaPhiBabe]

I went to an SEC school. I had good recs and a long list of high school activities including winning beauty pageants and lots of volunteer work. I had a good GPA. I'm not saying that I was hot stuff or anything, but I just wanted to let you know where I'm coming from.
I ended up in a "weak" house. Gamma Phi Beta is not that strong in the Southeast. People used to ask me what sorority I was in and when I told them they would say, "You don't LOOK like a Gamma Phi Beta." or "You're kidding, right?"
The thing is, I felt at home there. The sisterhood there was real and the girls didn't make me feel like I was being judged on my looks or my car or "what my daddy does for a living," like many of the other houses did. I could have gone to a bigger house, but I don't think I would have been as happy or as involved.
At first, I was disappointed when I realized that I would have to work hard to overcome the "reputation" of my sorority, but I've come to realize that, while I was never going to be homecoming queen, I was given a world of opportunites that I would never have gotten if I had chosen one of the "stronger" houses. I think that I am a good example of ending up "where I belong."
I know that not everyone has a good rush experience and not everyone is willing to "settle" for a "weak" house. But I think that if they truly give it a chance, maybe they'll see that they DID end up where they belonged after all. And, as for the girls who fall through the cracks, most of them are picked up by COB or Snap-Bidding... I think that if you truly want to be part of a sorority, you can be. Even in the SEC. You just have to have an open mind.

[GreenEyedLady]

I don't understand why being in a smaller house would effect your chances to be homecoming queen. Am I dense? I guess I don't get the whole southern school thing.

Originally posted by GammaPhiBabe
but I've come to realize that, while I was never going to be homecoming queen, I was given a world of opportunites that I would never have gotten if I had chosen one of the "stronger" houses. I think that I am a good example of ending up "where I belong."

[amycat412]

Originally posted by GreenEyedLady
I don't understand why being in a smaller house would effect your chances to be homecoming queen. Am I dense? I guess I don't get the whole southern school thing.

Perception.

If weaker house has a perception as, let's say "the fat chicks" even though this is not true, or should not matter-- well, you can rest assured anyone from this house, no matter how qualified, will not be Homecoming Queen.

[KillarneyRose]

I've read in some posts that at some of the more competitive rush schools, the PNMs come into rush already having visited the campus and making a point of getting to know sorority members. Do you all think this is a bad thing?

As I mentioned in a long ago thread where I detailed my rush experience, I grew up very close to where I went to college and I knew ever since I started high school that I wanted to go there and the I wanted to join a sorority. ErikaXO, correct me if I'm wrong but you were in a similar situation when you started college, right? So to that end, I tailored my resume not only so that I would look good to the college admissions people but to the sororities as well. Also, I went to parties at the school my junior and senior years of high school so that I could become friendly with the Greeks and learn my way around the system a bit (disregard the fact that a 16/17 year old has NO BUSINESS at a fraternity party, ok? It's alright that I did it, but if either of my daughters attempts such a stunt they will be grounded until they're 30 )

I feel that I started rush with a big advantage over most of the other PNM's; I was friendly with many sisters, I knew what the different houses were like in "real life" as opposed to the image they presented during rush and I knew enough about which sisters were involved in what non-Greek activities that I could ask what I felt to be intelligent questions. I didn't feel that I needed a two week rush period to learn where I belonged because I'd done a couple years of independant research.

So I guess what I'd like to know is does everyone think the advantage I gave myself was unfair to the other rushees or do you feel that "all's fair" in love and....um, rush?

And, regarding the Homecoming Queen question...
Remember, if a Homecoming Queen candidate is a member of a larger house, she has more people to campaign for her and, obviously, more people to vote for her!

[GammaPhiBabe]

Regarding the homecoming queen question.... I'll just say that my school was very political, as are most Southern schools, especially the big SEC campuses.

[shadokat]

GammaPhi and SigKap, both of you made excellent points! It just goes to show that women can be happy without the reputation. It's just a shame that more women don't go through recruitment with the attitudes you ladies had.

One of our chapters is at an SEC school and is THE weak sorority on campus. But they only had 12 girls last year. Now they are over 30. That's huge for them, and the reason why? Because in a recruitment of hundreds of girls, they only got 2! I talked to one of these women a few days ago, and asked her "are you happy with your sorority experience thus far?" Her answer was awesome...she said "I may not be in XYZ or ABC, but I'm where I belong. I had the opportunity to join a big sorority, but I didn't feel I would have as much of a sorority experience as I do with my chapter. We're going to make it out of this trouble and onto huge things...that's all I have to say!"

She made me cry I know, I'm a dork!

[ZetaLuvBunny]

Originally posted by AchtungBaby80
Oh, I forgot something. There are many, many girls who get into the "elite" chapters (here, at least) just to say they belong. It happens quite a bit. I personally know several members of the largest sororities on campus who do not go to meetings, who do not participate in Greek events, etc., but they all carry their little lettered tote bags around. Most of the chapter houses here are the same size, and we always wondered how in the heck the sororities with over 150 members managed to fit in their chapter room when we outgrew ours around the 90-member mark...but we found out it's because a significant number of their members don't attend meetings. Someone made the point earlier that rush is supposed to weed these girls out but it doesn't--well, whoever said that, you're right!

I like to refer to those people who are only in it for the letters as "letter pimps". LOL In other words, they like to show off, or "pimp" their letters to say "look at me, I'm in a sorority, I'm cool". Seriously, that is just as bad as someone wanting to go to Harvard or Yale just to wear their shirts to get attention. It irritates me to no end when people do not participate enough! ESPECIALLY when a few people don't show up for meetings. I have NEVER missed a meeting, and I never will unless I am in the hospital! If there is ANYTHING Zeta-related going on, I am always there unless I have a class or am really really sick (ex: I had mono last semester so I still went to meetings but had to miss watching some of the sporting events). Is it a crime to be overly spirited about your sorority? If so, I'm as good as arrested!

In regards to the Homecoming Queen thing, I'll reitirate (and attempt to clarify) what some others have said: A girl is more likely to be elected if she is in a "stronger" house, because
1) there will be more people behind her, with more enthusiasm to spread the word about why she should be elected through means of posters, banners, word-of-mouth, etc.
2) the more recognizable an organization (sorority) is to the student population, the more likely they are to vote for her even if they don't know her, simply because they have heard of the sorority, or because the sorority has a good reputation.

This is in NO WAY saying that someone from a "weaker" sorority or even someone who is NOT affiliated with a sorority cannot become Homecoming Queen, but it is still less likely, especially in the South. A similar concept goes for highschools, where a girl is more likely to win Homecoming/Prom Queen if she's in a more recognizable group/club such as cheerleading, athletics, honors societies, etc.

Ah...if only life were less complicated sometimes.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

My school eliminated HC queen, and now has 10 women and 10 men on court. They are selected based on application and personal interview reviewed by members of the faculty and alumni. I think this is a much better system. Although they are mostly Greeks, I see women from every chapter, including NPHC and locals.

[ZetaLuvBunny]

At my school Homecoming consists of a court as well, and the ladies running must have a high gpa, lots of community service involvement, etc, but students still vote. Our Homecoming Queen this year was a member of the NPHC organization Zeta Phi Beta, and our Homecoming King was the President of Phi Beta Sigma (I think that was the org. he was in, but I can't remember for sure). One of my sisters ran for HQ, but I think it wasn't advertised well enough...needless to say, she didn't win. Involvement in Greek Organizations as well as "advertising" really do play the biggest roles in those elections. Everywhere I went practically there was a paper or picture of the girl who ended up winning, and her sisters & friends were everywhere on campus promoting her---she had some awesome public relations going on.

[Peaches-n-Cream]

First of all, I loved my sorority experience. I found a home away from home where I made friends, had fun, and developed leadership skills. I joined one of the smallest sororities in the country and on my campus. Unfortunately for some reason small in size equals weak. Meanwhile back in high school, small meant elite. While I was active, we never made quota or total and were about half the size of the larger sororities. From my perspective, we had a small number of extremely active, enthusiastic, and involved sisters who cared about our sorority and liked each other. Of course, low numbers at formal rush were disappointing to us, but we maintained our membership and slowly grew. When it came to greek-wide events, we had the same number of sisters attending as other sororities even though they were twice our size.

[aggieAXO]

I just have to say that I am soooo glad A&M does not have homecoming and that we don't have cheerleaders-thus no bickering or pressure among the sororities to fill a certain number of cheerleading spots or run for homecoming queen etc...

We had yell leaders-hot guys in uniforms from the corp of cadets my cousin is a yell leader rt. now.

[justamom]

KilarneyRoseI've read in some posts that at some of the more competitive rush schools, the PNMs come into rush already having visited the campus and making a point of getting to know sorority members. Do you all think this is a bad thing?

This is exactly what MANY do from our town. I would think it would give an edge, but still, if they didn't like you, you wouldn't be offered a bid no matter HOW many times you visited. Some of the girls who did visit before hand still got cut.

One girl I mentioned during Tiger Days visited LSU and when she saw that it was a duplication of her HS, she decided to go to another school. It has been mentioned on this thread and others that girls often want a chance to recreate themselves,maybe NEED to recreate themselves. When you know a fair amount of members, you may be stuck in your HS niche. That can work against you as easily as it can work for you.

If this posted twice, I deleat one!

[ErikaXO]

Killarney--yes, you remembered correctly. I grew up right near my campus and spent many years at KSU with my mom when she was a student. I did some "investigating" before I started my freshman year and I went into rush knowing that I was only interested in 3 of the 7 sororities. I don't think that there is anything wrong with this.....as long as you get accurate info. I was lucky in that the things that I heard prior to starting school were pretty close to the truth, plus I had seen a lot of the members walking around in their letters and had gotten to make casual acquaintances from both the Kent and Akron sororities over the years.

My only problem with the way NPC rush is handled is that all of the restrictions make it very difficult for the chapters and rushees to see and know each other well enough to make an educated choice. I feel that if things were more relaxed and girls were able to approach the chapters they were interested in everyone would come to the rush parties and selection sessions much better equipped to make decisions. Could this offer an advantage to the more outgoing rushees? Sure. But that's real life. If you want something you have to take your opportunities and make the most of them. The whole sorority experience is supposed to help prepare you for life, and part of that is learning to overcome your shyness. Could this offer an advantage to the more "popular" chapters? Possibly, in that a lot of rushee effort and attention would most likely be aimed towards those chapters over others. But the "popular" chapters would still be restricted to the same quota as all the others, and just because more girls are interested in them does not mean that they would be interested in all of those girls.

I thought it was difficult enough to be realistic and cut through the red tape of my own chapter's rush rules and selection process. I am sure that most of the other NPC groups use a similar procedure, and it doesn't need to be made more restrictive by NPC rush rules. As it is, sometimes it would be just as effective to put names in a hat and draw.

"Letter pimps" are a problem, often for the strongest chapters. The "weaker" chapters may complain that things are unequal and unfair, but let me tell you, even the strongest chapter is affected in a negative way by Letter Pimps. We had our share of these and they were dead weight, plain and simple. We had a theory that a chapter of 70 really dedicated, fantastic sisters was far preferable to a chapter of 100 where 30 of them were dead weight and thus caused problems with participation numbers, etc. So we found ways to "weed out" the problem children. But it wasn't always easy. It seems to me that often the so-called "weaker chapters" have stronger membership in terms of dedication and purer motivation for being there.

I wish it could be fair for everyone. I wish that everyone's dream could come true with rush. But it doesn't. Even when everything seems perfect and a girl breezes through and gets her first choice, sometimes things just don't work out and she isn't happy. We don't always know what is best for us. Unfortunately we do not live in a world which guarantees our happiness at all times. But I think rush is a very realistic microcosm of society as a whole, and it acheives it purpose--to help prepare and equip these girls for what they are going to face in life after college.

[FuzzieAlum]

Very well said, Erika!